Opinion

If like me, you have something to say about a news story please email them to us and they will be posted here.  

11.29.03

Why the Fund Should Not Close its Doors.

The beginning of December 2003 marks the last month the Dept. of Justice will accept applications for the Federal Victims Compensation Fund will be accepting any applications in relation to the attacks of 9/11.

The fund has been open to the families of those lost on the ground or in the air and those injured.  By December 22nd 2003 when the door closes it would have been accepting applications for two years. Kenneth Feinberg, the Special Master appointed by Attorney General John Ashcroft personally overseas the decision on each application. He has the right to say yes or no. 

For the last few months Mr. Feinberg has been on a city by city tour so hectic he would put a presidential candidate to shame. His aim; to meet families and applicants to explain the process. Before his ‘US Tour’ began the fund had an application rate of nearly 48%, this has risen to about 60%, far lest than the 90-95% that Feinberg predicted almost two years ago. Its not clear if these percentages that the VCF have spoken about indicate applications for deceased or for all people including those that were injured.  

Families have found it hard to sit down and pour through reams of paperwork that the fund requires to substantiate a death claim. I have my own personal experience of this. For my won injury claim my file is nearly two hundred pages in total.

The form alone is 35 pages long and an applicant really should have the assistance of an attorney to make their way through the mine field of questions. But for wife, husband, mother father to have to sit down and place check marks in boxes and lay out personal details of a loved one is a task that I could not ever fathom. The reasons for not filling out the application are endless and the fund needs to recognize this.  

9/11 was a major turning point in world history, in the lives of thousand s of people. Normal is no longer a word that we as New Yorkers can ever become familiar with again. Months after the events of that day the news started seeping through about what the government really knew about the cloud of darkness that was laid to rest over this nation. What did the FBI, CIA, and the Federal government really know? Why did the EPA falsify the reports on air quality? The list of screw ups just keep on growing.

To some the fund has nothing to do with compensation; some see it as a cover up, a pay off and for them money pales into insignificance to finding out why New York is short of three thousand citizens. What are annuls of power are hiding? It must be remembered the fund was borne out of Congressional support for the stabilization of the airline industry shortly after that attacks and that an applicant must waive their right to sue the airlines primarily if they accept an award. The package was part of a multi-billion dollar bail out.

Recently Senator Hillary Clinton and Representative Carolyn Maloney have voiced their opinion on extending the deadline of the Fund. http://www.911injured.org/Media . Personally speaking I wholeheartedly support this move for many reasons. If Mr. Feinberg wants to meet that ninety nine percent application rate he has to give people more time. Right now at this time of the year there are families that have had a spare place at the Thanksgiving table. There are one parent families making plans for Christmas, parents that have to remember their children instead of worrying about what to buy them for the holidays.

Now the Dept of Justice expects families bereaved to forget that we are in a ‘Holiday Season Frenzy’. Its unfair to expect any one person to sit down and write out a lengthy documents, prepare tax forms, medical forms etc. and put a price on a life; the same life that innocently went to work on a Tuesday morning.

We are all human, and the fund cannot be open forever. Everything needs a cut off point, nothing can go on forever. We know this now. But making that day right before Christmas is coming over a little heartless. An extra six months could mean a whole world of difference to so many. It makes no difference for Mr. Feinberg to go on television and offer to help those that find it to difficult to fill out the form. It’s a very heartfelt and gallant offering, but right now priorities have changed.  It’s about answering a child’s question about where their father or mother is.? Something I don’t think I would have the strength to do.

Should the fund be extended for six more months? Yes. Give families one more chance to make the right decisions they need to make to move on. Some will go with the fund; some will not. At least they have a choice.

Recently Mr. Feinberg has shown that he has more emotion for the job he has undertaken, without any payment, than he did two years ago. It’s time Mr. Feinberg grasps what he has learnt about human loss and makes the next step to allow families to get past a time of year that has a different meaning to so many.